Redlands duo will wait on decisions

The future of the Missouri basketball program has been up in the air for a few weeks. In many ways, much of that future should be determined in the town of El Reno, Oklahoma. That is the current home of Vaidatos Volkus and Ty Morrison, two players at Redlands College who signed with the Tigers in November to come to campus in 2006. With the coaching change at Mizzou, the future of the Redlands recruits is up in the air.

"I'm going to leave that up to them and their people at home," said Redlands coach Steve Eck. "I'm not going to get involved with that at all. It was between those guys and their families when they made the decision and it will still be that way."

Eck did say that the current Tiger coaching staff has kept in touch and has even been down to see Redlands play since Quin Snyder's departure. However, it is unknown at this time which current staff members, if any, will be retained under Missouri's new regime.

As for the present, it has been an injury riddled road for the Redlands roster. Volkus has missed the last four games due to ankle injuries. Morrison missed much of the second semester.

"He has played the last two games," Eck said of Morrison, generally regarded as the star of Missouri's current class. "It is no big deal."

However, the health problems haven't been limited to those two.

"We were playing really well until about six games ago," Eck said. "We were playing Western Oklahoma State and we had three starters get hurt in that game at about the 14-minute mark. We kind of limped through that game and limped through the rest of the season. We never had the same lineup."

Other than Volkus, Eck does have his starters back now. The 6-foot-8 forward could return when regional tournament play opens on March 10th, but Eck is unsure at this time. The coach hopes to have his team playing in the national tournament, which opens in Hutchinson, Kansas on March 21st. No recruiting decisions will likely be made until after Redlands is finished playing.